


Feeling Safe Again

by Mega407



Category: Original Work
Genre: Anxiety, Depression, Eating Disorders, Other, Panic Attacks, Self-Harm, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-14
Updated: 2020-06-14
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:14:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24718858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mega407/pseuds/Mega407
Summary: What happens when you are confronted with your hidden mental heath problems head on?
Relationships: Original Female Character/Reader
Kudos: 2





	Feeling Safe Again

**Author's Note:**

> This story story has mentions of mental heath issues as well as eating disorder tendencies, self harm and suicidal thoughts.   
> Please read with cation and if you feel uncomfortable at any point please stop reading.  
> Stay safe<3   
> With care, Maggie

We walk into the room filled with a few other people, the other staff from the school. She can feel me tensing up being around other people, so she takes my hand and leads me to our seats at the table. We are the last ones to arrive so the lady who is in charge gets up and goes to the front of the room and starts her speech.   
“Thank you all for coming today, we hope you enjoy the video that was made by our very own media class.” She says with a smile “and that hopefully you will take away something helpful from it.” She walks over to the computer and starts the video. 

As soon as the first few seconds are shown I start to tense up even more and want to leave. The first few frames are pictures of people who self harm and are trying to commit suicide, as well as a few people with eating disorders thrown in. The fact that the images and people being pro trade in the video so closely resemble me, makes my skin crawl. Most if not all of the things that are being shown are things that I have personally gone through and still do. Anxiety, depression, eating disorders, self harm and suicide attempts. 

I sit there so tense and uncomfortable wondering why the hell I was here in the first place. But the fact was that Nancy was invited as a teacher to this and wanted me to come along so that she didn’t have to go and bear another boring school meeting alone. I start to tense even more because I can’t leave discretely without people looking at me and thinking there is something wrong. But then I feel a warm hand on my knee give a gentle squeeze and I look down to that hand trying to concentrate on it, in stead of the awful video being played in front of me, reminding me how horrible I am. 

I think Nancy can feel me trying to retreat into myself because all of a sudden that hand on my knee moves closer and she just holds it out in front of me. I immediately take her hand and start to trace the faint wrinkles and lines on it and run my pointer finger up and down each one of the digits attached to the hand. I play with the neatly trimmed but not manicured nails. Run my fingers over the soft as silk skin and try to focus so hard on the hand, that I can float away from where I am right now and not have to be here. 

I feel her squeeze my hand and look up to see that the video has ended and the woman who had stood up before to speak has stood up once again and is saying something about a complimentary lunch. It is then when I here the mention of food that I really start to freak out and shut down. I grip on hard to Nancy’s hand and pray that this nightmare will end soon. 

Luckily she sees that I can no longer keep it together and stands up taking me gripping onto her hand along with her, she then takes my other hand and wraps it around her upper arm and I understand that she is trying to give me comfort with holding onto her arm in a more solid grip than her hand can provide. So I grab on and walk blindly along beside her. I am really just looking at the ground and at our feet moving at a steady pace, but then when we stop there is another pair of feet dawned in red high heels that I recognize as the tacky ones the lady who stood up and talked wore. 

I hear Nancy talking with the lady but don’t comprehend any of the words into sentences because at the moment my brain is foggy and thick and I can’t think straight. I hear something about leaving early and not feeling well, then hand shakes are exchanged by the two women and we are walking again. When we get out into the parking lot she doesn’t take us to the car but to the path along the side that leads to the old apple trees and that is along the river. We just walk for a little while and I hear the water flowing and the birds chirping, as well as the wind breezing lightly against my exposed skin and blowing my hair slightly.

I feel myself take in a full breath and my lungs burn. It feels like I haven’t breathed in so long, and this huge breath is wonderful but painful at the same time. I let go of my death grip on her arm and my muscles also burn and feel like jello at the same time. She takes my hand and continues walking slowly down the path. “Are you alright now darling?” She asks me once we have walked a little farther and my breath has returned to normal and all of my senses have stopped being in hyperdrive, crowding my brain with fog. 

“Yes” it comes out in a choked voice so I clear my throat and try once again to answer. “Yes, I am okay now.” It comes out soft but legible.   
We walk a little more and come upon a bench facing the river, she walks us over and sits down. I look out onto the water just watching how the water flows. Over the rocks and swerling ripples, it is so clear I can see a few fish swimming and the rocky sand at the bottom.   
“Would you like to talk about what happened?” She asks. 

I take another big breath and keep looking out to the water. “You didn’t tell me that the topic was going to be… that. For this meeting.”  
“I am sorry sweet heart I did not know what the topic was going to be, I thought it was going to be the same old boring meetings we always have. But apparently the administration wanted us to learn more about the harmful mental health issues and know how to spot them better.” She explained with sorrow in her voice and I can tell she is truly unnerved about what happened. 

I don’t want to look at her, not because I’m mad at her but because I am ashamed at myself, and that I have to have this conversation with her. Because I know her perception of me is going to change! She is going to think of me as the freak I am, with all of these problems that I can’t fix and have no control over. She will think of me as damaged and different. And I can’t stand to see her look at me like that. With her beautiful blue eyes, that held nothing but gentle and care and even likeness before.

So I continue to look out at the water as I tell her, that way I won’t see her eyes change and the realization set in. “The things that the video was about, I have those things. I do those things. All of them actually. I have anxiety over the stupidest things like picking up the phone, and I have depression so that I sleep for 20 hours and don’t even have the energy to take a shower. I can’t look at food without having to wage it against crying over my body that night or counting the calories subconsciously. I cut my arms to feel the pain and see the blood come out, because sometimes that is the only thing I can feel. Every time I take my pills to fix all of this, I think about how many would I have to take to fix everything! How many of these damn pills in this cabinet do I have to take to fall asleep and never walk up again?” I look down ashamed of myself and scratch the inside of my arm where all of the existing cuts and scars are, so that I can focus on the pain and not on the words coming out of my mouth. 

But to my surprise there is that same soft warm hand that covers my wrist and stops me from scratching. I look at that hand and just think about it. That hand has helped me so many times, twice today already and it isn’t even 2pm. Then I look up to the woman that the hand belongs to. I look to her, bracing myself for her eyes. Her beautiful eyes that will hate me now. But as I look up at her and look into those wonderful eyes I see the same gentle care that was there before. But there is something deeper there now.

“You don’t have to hide anything like that from me, do you hear me. In fact I want you to tell me about things like that! Then I can try and help with them. Because you know what, I had and still have some of those things as well. As for the things I am not so sure on, you can teach me about them and things that might help with them. I don’t want you to ever not tell me about these things okay! I don’t want you hurting all on your own. There are so many thing that I can do to help, like this. This I know helps a lot and you can get one of these whenever you want one.” 

She then leaned over to me and wrapped her arms around me tightly in a warm embrace. I sit there a little shocked for a few seconds but then I melt into the hug and wrap my arms around her as well and tuck my head under her chin. Strangely I don’t feel worse now that I had told her about my problems, I feel something completely different. Here, in her arms. I feel safe.


End file.
